Remote communications tips - COMPASS for Pressure v5

COMPASS for Pressure version 5 has a new remote communications tool that is not as forgiving of imperfect communications settings as the prior version.

The setting that is most often incorrect is the Response Terminator. Most devices will work without a Response Terminator (field is left blank), or the Response Terminator is set to <CR> only, (carriage return). The recommended setting is to leave this blank and COMPASS will timeout and continue on in 300 ms. See the remote communication settings documentation for the device that you are trying to communicate with to see what response terminator is sent and if there are options to change this.

Here is example with an Agilent 34970A with 34401A multiplexor card.

READ? command with empty Response Terminator works with timeout set to 1 ms (however the software and hardware is not working at this speed). In summary, the remote interface is keeping up with the commands being sent and received.

READ? command with <CR> Response Terminator does not work with timeout set to 1 ms. When increased to 200 ms there are no errors.